Deep Purple, O2 Arena, London, November 2024 – Well that was a strange day, a rather strange evening, the day after the long long night before, several double edged swords and big arenas aren’t great places to see bands even on good days. The O2 Arena is a particularly soulless barn of a place, everything, including the history and those nightmare flashbacks to that millennium party and a grinning Blair, everything about the place is awful save for the option of arriving by cable car, a temptation resisted last night. It wasn’t really a cable car kind of day yesterday, it was not an anything much kind of day after a night of listening to the US election and the diabolically nightmarish backward steps of a Trump return. I’m frankly not in the mood for a any kind of live music let alone some surely well past their sell-by date bloated old rock band in a horrible cold-hearted enormo arena. Oh why can’t this at least be happening at the Royal Albert Hall, somewhere steeped in Purple history, if this really is the last time then why here? There isn’t even a decent boozer for a quick pre-gig pint anywhere near, the only option is the overpriced bars underneath the phone-pimping shopping mall that the Dome itself has become, gawd this is a soul-sucking place to come taste a band on gawd awful day for the planet. 

And I’ve timed it badly and managed to be in my (damn uncomfortable) seat before the damn support band take to the way off in the distance stage way way over there. Reef were never any damn good in the first place, their formula, if you can credit them with having one, is to write one riff and one line and repeat it again and again for three or four minutes then do it all again with the next half formed song and then do it again and then do it again and yes, then do it all ableedin’gain, their pub rock is beyond dragging in here in the cold arena and from where I’m sat at the back in these damn uncomfortable seats about a mile away from the stage their distant set seems never ending. Their minor hits goes down politely well, as does most of their half-arsed set actually but hell on toast, did they really end the torturous experience with a beyond plodding version of Fleetwood bloody Mac’s Chain? And did they then on top of it all really manage to mess the racing car bit up? It really was beyond bad pub rock covers band bad bad bad bad. Why on earth did they do it? They sound like The Wurzels or some kind of half-price Axl Rose on home made cider, who told them ending the set with a half-arsed cover was a good idea? Are there maybe some things verging on almost being worse than a Trump election win? Can the day get any worse? What am I doing here? Why did I ever think this was going to be a good place to be? I avoid places like this like the plague, can I just sneak out now?  

The Purps though, probably for one last time, but where’s the atmosphere, why is the in-between bands music quiet beyond the point of pointless? There’s no excitement in the air, no sense of anticipation, no build up, no gig ritual, no nothing really, surely in a place like this extra effort is needed, no one seems to have given much thought to anything in here tonight, this really is a cold place right up until when the lights go out and Holst’s Mars Bringer of War kicks in (and as fine a piece of music it is how many times has that been used over far too many years to introduce way too many big rock bands to a stage?) We are finally off, there’s still no atmosphere, no real sense of occasion, we are off though, Mars gives way to big far tires and everything, Highway Star, alright, not going to need to hold too tight, it might be a stomping heavy metal classic but everyone is rooted to those damn seats, the band are going to have their work cut out to slice through this and nobody gonna steal my head and actually as cold as this place is and as far away as the band are in this damn barn, that is a fine version of the absolute classic. Deep Purple, however cold and soulless this place might be, are apparently on it and without a stop for a breath they’re into a piece that’s a little more than just a bit on the side from their rather decent still new album before the stomp of Into The Fire. Hey look, I’m a fan, I haven’t seen them for years, all that torrential rain of Knebworth back in the last century if you really must know. 

Surely they got over the need for those endless solos that plagued things back there, them and off their offshoot bands, surely all those damn solos have been dumped somewhere in the 90s? Alas no, start of Uncommon Man is interrupted by a way too long show off guitar solo from an admittedly far-leaner-than-Blackmore Simon McBride, the Metallica reference about seven hours into what was a number of steps past the point of no return really was talking the piss – mate we know you’re good, take a leaf out of the book of Paice and leave the solo in the last century! Alright it wasn’t as tedious as Blackmore breaking up every Purple/Rainbow gig ever every fifteen minutes or so for a guitar wank and they got through far more actual songs then they ever did back in the day but come on, longer than longer guitar solos, please gawd no, just play the damn song! We know how good you all are, we can hear that trademark Hammond and Guitar interplay that made it so special, so unique, when Purple do get it going tonight it is all still there, keyboard player Don Airey more than pulls off the Jon Lordness of it all and yes, one time Sweet Savage guitarist Simon McBride is another fine guitarist in a long like of Purple guitarists. I mean when Blackmore wasn’t playing his endless solos he was damn good as was the magical Tommy Bolin and yer man from Kansas, Steve Morse, McBride is more than pulling it off up there and yes guitar solos are tedious and the riff from Enter Sandman is touch strange up there but we do finally get to the meat of the rather brilliant Uncommon Man with that almost lean slice of Fanfare To The Common Man reference, it almost a prog rock thing, it isn’t typical Deep Purple, it is a thing of beauty, they’re starting to cut through the lack of atmosphere in this damn corporate barn, no one’s got out of their seats yet though, it is very polite in here and the band and the sound are way way over there and mostly way too far away and it is about the big screens, we’re semi detached and it does feel slightly strange, slightly I don’t know, slightly something or other, now if only there was a portable door to go though (that comes later)

Mr Gillan still has it, how old is he now, almost eighty? He can still scream, he can sill hold that note, they’re all sounding good, Ian Paice is looking and sounding as powerfully graceful, he’s always has had soul in his drumming, those little details in his playing you almost don’t notice, Roger Glover is still driving is all (and still jumping about like he always did) and yes I guess Don Airey is allowed to reference Mr Crowley in one of his solos, he was a vital part of Ozzy’s band back there, he did go on a bit with those damn solos though, how many did he have? Four? Five? Land of Hope and Glory in the middle of it all was a low point, thankfully the audience didn’t really pick on the idea that the lyrics on the big screen behind the stage were so we could sing along to it all, the bloke next to me is answering his e.mails on his phone, we are in the freeloading press seats though, he arrived late and then caught with his office work during the solos. Was that a Keith Emerson reference just then? That was a nice touch, his solos might be way too long, Don Airey is a damn good at doing his Hammond and Moog thing though, I guess indulgent solos are part of it? Okay if you’re gonna do it, so it to the mix, no Land of Hope and bloody Glory though! 

hearing When A Blind Man Cries live is a highpoint, for years that track that never made it to the original version of Machine Head was the holy grail but the winner take all and runs off with the ball and it has been on subsequent versions of their classic album and here it is live, don’t ask me how long they’ve been doing it for, like I said already I haven’t caught up with Deep Purple since they reformed to play Knebworth thirty-nine years ago and according to Mr Gillan a portable door is a useful thing when you’re doing a bank job and you need to get out, one of several rather entertaining half nonsense have illuminating in-between song eccentric chats he had with whoever was paying attention. It was all bleeding obvious really, and as detached as they are feeling all the way over there and as lifeless as this audience is all stuck in their seats, Deep Purple are doing it, they’re tight, they are going to play for not too short of two hours, they are damn good, they’re better than this cynic thought they would be, are you sure they’re in their late 70s?  Lazy is sounding almost jazzy tonight,Lazy is a powerfully impressive reminder of where they actually came from, their roots in that 60s R&B scene, that Hammond organ and harmonica working together, those drums that have never been just straight forward. 

Actually this is not a case of lets get through the new songs and get them out of the way, we’re only here for the classics, the new material more than stands up in a well balance set,  Bleeding Obvious could very easily be one of their heavy metal band inspiring mid 70s treats rather than something off the latest album from earlier this very year, Space Truckin’ is of course a ball, come on! Hey, I know none of this is cool or fashionable and I should be telling you about the band we saw at The Moth Club last Tuesday night or the fine new Jesus And The zealots single that just came out (actually I bet they like Deep Purple), Yeah, I know I should shut about all this and now there’s some stupid with flare gun threatening to burn the place to the ground and this is as cool as flip, always has been, always will be and why is every one still in their seats and for a moment we can almost forget the election and more than just some Swiss casino being on fire right now even if I am going to almost get into a fist fight with a gloating Trump supporter in a Pink Floyd shirt on the way out! There’s another new one for the encore, this is no old fangled thing though and it is feeling good man sings Mr G before a reaching back to the Sixties psychedelia of Tush and the final punch of Black Night to finish it all off…

Hey, it was a strange twenty-four hours, these are strange times, and why were they playing Burn is the Tube station, wrong line up! London Transport trolling us! And we’re still struggling to work out what the election actually will mean, the world does seem a little more dangerous today with that orange madman back in the White House and the Dome is an awfully detached place to see a band, and yes there were, even if they have cut them back, still too many damn solos, and we were strangely detached from the band and no one get out of the seats and it was all way too polite but they did cut through it all, they did do it, Deep Purple still do it, remember that feeling, they’ve still got to be twenty foot tall. Deep Purple, even on this of all days, even in gawd forsaken soulless place like this, Deep Purple were still damn good. they were still walking tall, it was good to be here…   (sw)

Previously – ORGAN: Albums, more music – The blistering psychedelic space rock of Lords of Form, Squid Pisser’s extreme glitch, Richard Duguay & The Beautiful Decline, is the new Deep Purple album any good?

Deep Purple